
There’s still a lot to learn about the origins of the aurora and the effects of strong solar winds.

After Christianization in Medieval Europe, people saw them as a warning for dark times ahead.

The auroras have also been considered omens. In Finnish, the word for northern lights, 'revontulet' translates to 'firefox.' The Sami people of Finnish Lapland thought that the lights resulted from the firefox running across the snow so quickly that his tail threw sparks into the sky. The brighter they shone, the happier the deceased was said to be. Some Native American groups reportedly believed the aurora represented the spirits of the dead. However, there are no mentions of the northern lights in the old Icelandic sagas, so these are just speculations. The valkyries were female figures who guided warriors who died in battle to Valhalla. Modern scholars have theorized that the Old Norse people might have thought the northern lights were the glinting of the shields and armors of the Valkyries. Strangely, there is a lack of folklore about the aurora in Iceland. Iceland sits at a latitude of approximately 64 degrees north, making it the perfect place to see the northern lights.īefore science could explain the source of the dancing lights in the sky, different people told many stories about their origins. They’re usually visible above a latitude of 60 degrees north and below 60 degrees south, with the ‘southern lights’ being called the aurora australis. The auroras only appear near the Earth’s magnetic poles. On the flip side, northern lights can occur in the atmosphere on a midsummer day, but the sun’s brightness prevents you from viewing them. So even during a dark, clear night, Iceland might not have any northern lights. The ionization gives them their colors, usually green, but occasionally purple, red, pink, orange, and blue.īut solar activity isn’t reliable and can be sporadic. The northern lights, also known as the aurora borealis, are the visible result of solar particles entering the Earth’s magnetic field and ionizing high in the atmosphere.
#Northern lights how to#
